


obviously you can go the ass tattoo route, and obviously im gonna like it

by putorius



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Pynch Week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-11-02 12:56:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20753894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/putorius/pseuds/putorius
Summary: “Don’t tell me I’ve got you speechless,” said Adam. “I mean, you. Speechless. Tell me you don’t have anything to say about that.”Ronan rolled the thought around in his head - it wasn’t lying if he was following orders. He could open his mouth right now and tell Adam he had nothing to say.“It’s not uncommon,” said Ronan instead. “Avoiding touch until you find your soulmate.”Soulmate . Saying the word to Adam was almost too much. It rang around his ears and filled the BMW---soulmate au where the first time you touch your soulmate, a soulmark appearsfor pynch week 2019 day one soulmates





	obviously you can go the ass tattoo route, and obviously im gonna like it

**Author's Note:**

> so maybe i went on hiatus and decided to abandon all my ao3 writing and then impulse decided to write a fic for pynch week 2019 literally the day of! its fine! anyway hope you like it as usual i didnt edit it  
sorry the titles gross its from the office fkhdslfjadf

It was becoming difficult not to touch Adam.

“Would you pass me that?”

“Mm,” hummed Ronan, following the jerk of Adam’s head to a Welsh-Gaelic dictionary. It smelled the way old books always had, and tickled his nose as he passed it over. Ronan could tell it tickled Adam, too, because Adam’s nose twitched and scrunched up, rippling his freckles.

“You know, you _ could _ help me,” said Adam, flipping to the page he needed.

“But you’re _ so _ good at research, and _ I’m _ so good at shooting shit into the trash,” said Ronan. He’d been folding paper footballs from scraps from Adam’s notebook since Adam had sat down. Adam had glared at him when he’d started, but hadn’t actually made any moves to stop Ronan from wasting paper.

“Sure,” said Adam. “But you’re - anyway, I’m almost done.”

There was no cool or casual way to press Adam for what he’d nearly said, but Ronan filled in the blanks in his head, nearly against his will. His head swam with possibilities - compliments, admissions, but most characteristically in Adam’s voice, _ But you’re a shithead, Lynch _.

“Good, I’m starving,” said Ronan, shaking his head a bit.

Adam practically shoved the dictionary back in Ronan’s face with an exasperated expression. “Tell me we aren’t going to have to eat that dreadful avocado pizza you keep ordering,” said Adam.

Ronan grabbed the dictionary as nonchalantly as possible, making sure he didn’t come too close to brushing Adam’s fingers.

“It’s not my fault you don’t have taste, Parrish,” said Ronan.

“I swear, it’s the food equivalent of the murder squash song,” said Adam, shoving books and papers back into his back. “I swear it’s one big joke, and one day you’re going to get tired of suffering through a garbage pizza _ you _ created.”

Ronan flexed his hand, trying to get rid of the feeling of almost touching Adam, and shot his last paper football at Adam’s nose. It hit, and Adam gave Ronan a long-suffering look. These looks always leveled Ronan, as they made it incredibly obvious how tired Adam was, highlighting the gaunt sunkenness of his eyes.

It was becoming difficult not to touch Adam.

\---

It was becoming obvious, Ronan was sure.

He’d touched Gansey years ago, before his father had died, and it had been an accident. He hadn’t been eager to brush arms with Blue, but knew there was no danger in it. There was no universe in which he was soulmates with Blue. Noah, of course, was a ghost.

So, at this point, Adam was the only one he hadn’t touched, and he could only keep it up for so long before someone would tell him to get over his shit. There were only so many ways they could organize themselves in the back of the Pig before he would have to sit next to Adam, and he knew that, packed like sardines, there would be no way to avoid some part of his skin touching Adam’s.

At present, Blue was throwing a fit over having to sit in the back.

“What, like ghost breath smells so bad,” said Ronan. He was holding Blue at arm’s length as he leaned against the passenger’s door of the Pig, an action which made Blue feel unbelievably infantilized. It was, of course, infantilizing.

“I _ always _ sit in the back,” said Blue. “Is it so hard for you to take turns?”

“Middle child,” said Ronan.

Blue stilled and looked Ronan in the eye. “Why is this so important to you?”

Ronan was not a liar. “Well, if Dick won’t let me drive…”

“C’mon, Blue,” said Adam, sounding a touch more Virginia southern than he normally did, like the conversation was exhausting him. “You know he’s too stubborn.”

“If you tell me to _ be the bigger man _ , I’m breaking up with you,” said Blue, but she allowed Adam to lead her into the backseat. “Why don’t you ream _ him _ for once?”

Adam didn’t answer her, but sighed and held out his hand for Ronan, as though to lead him into the backseat instead of Blue.

Ronan jerked away. He kept it as small as he could, but there was no mistaking that Adam had seen it - Ronan had flinched away from Adam’s touch.

It was becoming obvious.

\---

“Do you ever think about soulmates?” asked Adam. He wasn’t looking at Ronan, his nose pointedly buried in his translations.

“What?” said Ronan, thinking it might buy him some time.

“Soulmates,” said Adam again. He had a pencil mark smudged on his cheek.

“Something in the Welsh about it?” asked Ronan.

Adam put down his pencil. He knew Ronan well enough to know he was avoiding answering him.

“I need a break,” said Adam. “I know I told Gansey I’d finish up these translations by the weekend, but I’m getting cabin fever. You wanna go on a walk?”

Ronan nodded. Adam collected his things and stood up. He didn’t wipe the pencil off his cheek.

Outside, the heat of the daytime was starting to give way to a cool nighttime, and it raised goosebumps on their arms. When Adam swung his arms, Ronan could see the rim of Adam’s farmer’s tan.

“You’d think Gansey would be able to speak Welsh by now,” said Adam, moving lackadaisically down the sidewalk. “Amount of time he spends in Welsh books, ‘n all.”

“Give a man a fish, I guess,” said Ronan. “If he keeps shoving his translations off on us, he’ll never learn to fly.”

“Think you’re mixing your metaphors there, Lynch,” said Adam.

They were coming up on a street lamp. Feeling boyish, Adam leapt at it. He grabbed it with one hand and, anchored by a foot at the base, swung around just as Ronan was catching up. The two of them were nearly nose to nose, and Ronan leaned back, almost knocking himself over. Sometimes, when Adam got close enough to him, Ronan entertained the possibility that Adam really was his soulmate. The air between them felt charged, and his hair stood on end. He shivered.

Adam opened his mouth, shut it, and stepped off the lamppost.

“So, soulmates?” he asked.

“I know of them,” said Ronan.

“Ever think about them?” asked Adam.

“Yes,” said Ronan, because he did. More accurately, he thought a lot about Adam, and what he would feel like when Adam eventually found his soulmate, about how long he could keep pretending there was any worth in avoiding touching Adam. When he was younger, he’d spent a lot of time worrying about who his soulmate would be and how he would deal with it being, maybe, not the kind of person he really wanted it to be, but now he only worried about who Adam’s soulmate would be.

“Do you -” said Adam. “Do you ever think about them?”

“Not anymore,” said Ronan. “You think about yours?”

“Hope so,” said Adam.

“What, like you think you’ve found them?” asked Ronan. He could feel a heat creeping up behind his ears. Did Adam -

“Well,” said Adam, shifting his weight. “Hope so.”

“I’m happy for you, man,” said Ronan, which was basically true. “Have you tried?”

“If I’d tried, I wouldn’t be hoping, would I?” said Adam. “So you don’t think about yours anymore?”

“No.”

“You did before?”

“Yes.”

“Why’d you stop?”

“What are you, a cop?” said Ronan, getting irritated. Then, calmer: “I think - I don’t need to anymore.”

Adam hummed. “We’d better finish that translation before Gansey blows a gasket,” he said.

Ronan snorted. “We?”

“Okay, _ I _ need to finish that translation while you bother me with paper footballs or whatever fresh torture you’ve come up with this week,” said Adam.

It would have been so easy to take Adam’s hand to walk him back to the library. Ronan had spent an unfortunate amount of time thinking about Adam’s hands. He wondered if Adam had used the hand cream he’d left for him. He wondered if he would be able to feel it if he took Adam’s hand.

“Are you coming?” asked Adam. He was already ten feet ahead of Ronan.

“Race you,” said Ronan, and then he took off.

“Asshole!” shouted Adam, but he was laughing. Ronan could hear the uncomfortable rustling of Adam’s backpack. It wasn’t the same as flooring it in a car, but the burn that worked up in his chest from running was distraction enough.

\---

“This is getting ridiculous,” said Adam, tumbling into the passenger's seat of the BMW.

“What?” said Ronan. Everything seemed incredibly normal to him, but the conversation had only just started.

“I saw you,” said Adam. “I always see you.”

“Parrish, I don’t -”

“Whenever I get too close -” said Adam - he pulled the car door closed and restarted himself. “Whenever I get too close, you always - you move away.”

“Oh,” said Ronan. Adam waited. Ronan didn’t continue speaking.

“Don’t tell me I’ve got you speechless,” said Adam. “I mean, you. Speechless. Tell me you don’t have anything to say about that.”

Ronan rolled the thought around in his head - it wasn’t lying if he was following orders. He could open his mouth right now and tell Adam he had nothing to say.

“It’s not uncommon,” said Ronan instead. “Avoiding touch until you find your soulmate.”

_ Soulmate _. Saying the word to Adam was almost too much. It rang around his ears and filled the BMW.

“You touch the others,” said Adam.

“Gansey was an accident,” said Ronan. “Noah’s dead.”

“Blue?”

“It couldn’t be Blue,” said Ronan.

“And you know that?” asked Adam. He’d liked Blue once - not that it ever seemed likely that she was his soulmate, but there had been a second where he’d hoped.

“I know,” said Ronan.

“Ronan,” said Adam, reaching for Ronan’s hand. Ronan, as always, flinched away.

“Don’t,” said Ronan. “Not unless.”

“Don’t you want to know?” asked Adam, eyes tense and eyebrows knit. “If we aren’t, we can just -” _ Move on _, Adam thought.

Ronan looked away from Adam, at his hands futzing with his bracelets. “I don’t know if I could take it,” he said. “If it wasn’t you.”

“What if it is me?” asked Adam quietly.

_ It is you _ , Ronan wanted to say. _ Even if it isn’t, I’ve decided. _ Instead, he said: “Maybe I can’t handle that either.”

“Give me permission,” said Adam. “Ronan, give me permission.”

Ronan nodded. When Adam didn’t move, he said, “Do it.”

For a moment, Adam’s hand hovered in the air around Ronan, unsteady and unsure of where to land. There was a lovely, terrifying second where Adam considered brushing Ronan’s cheek (an action that seemed so natural as breathing, it seemed impossible that Adam hadn’t let his hands settle there before), before his thought better of it. If they were soulmates, Ronan would be cursed with a mark on his face, and it would tell everyone who saw him that he was stuck with Adam Parrish. Ronan could almost feel Adam’s fingertips along his cheekbone. If Adam walked away right now, the almost-feeling of his hand against his cheek would be enough.

Adam started to draw his hand away, to find a new piece of skin to mark (if it would mark, _ if _), and Ronan pitched forward into Adam’s hand.

\---

In retrospect, it was kind of stupid to mark himself in such an obvious place. Ronan was no liar, but he liked to take his time with things like this before he told people.

_ Things like this _ . As though he’d ever had a boyfriend to mull over before. As though he had people to tell other than Gansey. But something in his heart sang when he thought about it - he had a _ boyfriend _ and a _ soulmate _ and they were the _ same person _. This person had picked Ronan on purpose. It might have been uncharacteristic of him, but it was hard not to smile when he thought about it.

“What are you doing?” asked Gansey incredulously. A smiling Ronan Lynch didn’t tend to mean anything good, particularly when that Lynch didn’t seem to be up to much other than waiting for you to get home. And then, “Good Christ, what’s on your face?”

“Is that a trick question?” said Ronan, still grinning. His smile was as sharp as ever, but his eyes had a glow they hadn’t before.

Gansey stepped slowly into the room, dumping his bag by the door as he went. “Have you always had that birthmark, or is that -”

“A soulmark?” asked Ronan. “You have one yourself, Dick, you think you’d be able to tell.”

Gansey rushed towards Ronan and stopped just short of tackling him. “Who? Ronan!”

“Parrish.”

“_ Parrish? _” exclaimed Gansey. “We’ve known Parrish for over a year!”

Ronan nodded. He waited patiently for Gansey’s brain to catch up with the conversation they were having.

“You never touched him? For over a year?” he said. “How on earth did you manage that?”

Ronan considered Gansey - a formality of the emotionally constipated. Ronan already knew he was going to tell Gansey, and that there was no one (short of Adam) he’d rather go through the entire thing with, but it made him feel just slightly more at ease to pretend he could withhold this information if he wanted to.

“I liked him,” he said quietly.

“Not the entire time,” said Gansey. “I mean, it was _ over a year _, Ronan.”

“The entire time,” said Ronan. “Since we drove past him.”

Gansey pursed his lips. Ronan hoped he wouldn’t press the issue too badly.

Eventually, Gansey raised his hand hesitantly. “Do you mind?”

Ronan nodded. Gansey slid his hand over the mark Adam had left. It didn’t feel so relieving as it had when Adam had touched him, and Ronan found satisfaction in the idea.

“I can’t believe the two of you aren’t wrapped around each other right now,” said Gansey. “I mean, when Jane and I found Henry -”

“Finish that sentence, I’ll kick your ass,” said Ronan. Then, “Parrish had work.”

“Is he coming over after?”

“I’m going to his,” said Ronan.

“God, your _ face _,” said Gansey emphatically.

“I know,” said Ronan, giddy. “Hey, -”

His phone rang. Adam’s number smiled up at him.

“Um, I have to take this,” said Ronan.

“You’re answering your _ phone? _” said Gansey.

“Fuck _ off _,” said Ronan, shoving Gansey away as he answered the phone. “No, not you. Gansey - are you done?”

“_ Pick me up? _” asked Adam. Gansey could just barely hear him over the phone.

“Out the door,” said Ronan. Then, to Gansey: “If I leave you here to go hang out with my boyfriend, are you going to shit yourself?”

“I’ll be fine,” said Gansey pleasantly.

“Can you be normal?” asked Ronan. “Jesus.”

“Go hang out with your _ boyfriend _,” said Gansey.

“Gross,” said Ronan. But he was smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry i forgot to write a kiss lmao id say ill write a follow up but like no promises  
leave a comment if you liked it! or message me/send an ask on tumblr @putoriius!


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